


Lightning Crash

by Monochrome_girl (Skarita)



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Carol stays AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 11:51:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18690937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skarita/pseuds/Monochrome_girl
Summary: Carol is here to stay. Maria is still getting used to having her back.





	Lightning Crash

**Author's Note:**

> I mostly just wanted to explore the timeline where Carol doesn't leave with the skrulls and she and Maria get to relearn the shape of their relationship. Mostly from Maria's POV.

It's not the first time Fury finds them out in the desert. Maria and Monica are midway through loading a hull panel nearly their height into the flatbed of the truck, Maria really moving most of the weight and Monica valiantly contributing by picking up the tiny screws, finer than anything humanity has made in recent memory that have shaken from it and putting them into her hip bag as she heaves.  
  
"What do y'all think you're doing" he says, putting a hand on the metal, partly to stabilize it and partly to stop Maria from pushing it any further into the truck.   
  
"What does it look like?" Maria says, giving up for the moment and leaning on her salvage.   
  
"Stealing property from the US government if you ask me."   
  
"Really? I don't see their name on it anywhere."   
  
Fury pauses for a second to stare incredulously at her. Maria notes his left eye is purple today. It doesn't suit him as much as the eye-patch he's occasionally worn to dinner lately, but he seems to now and then make a token attempt at trying a replacement.   
  
"You know you're not supposed to be here. I'm going to have to step in and stop this eventually."   
  
Conveniently this is when Monica pipes in with an "Auntie Carol cleared for landing!" as Carol thuds down to earth in a spray of dirt and sand.   
  
"Oh! Hey Nick," she announces, stomping casually up to them and flicking dust out of her hair. "Here, let me help you with that" she says, hefting the hull shard the rest of the way into the flatbed, entirely ignoring Fury's grip.   
  
This is usually how it goes- a token attempt at stopping them, which is abandoned as soon as they remember there's no force on earth that _can._  Maria smiles.   
  
"Dinner next Saturday?"   
  
"I'd be delighted", Fury says, rolling his eyes and stalking away.

  
  
☆☆☆

  
  
Carol and Maria, Maria and Carol. It took them a while to start being close again the way they used to be, partially because there were those awkward moments in the middle there, Carol sleeping in the guest bedroom, when Maria tried to get used to the idea that the woman she mourned for years is now sleeping in her home, and also, isn't just human anymore, and found that part of her couldn't quite catch up.   
  
And Carol was- well, she was and wasn't herself. Familiar and strange. Now and then she'd put her arm around Maria's waist, or touch her shoulder, and Maria's heart would jump- and Carol would pull back, confused by herself, and Maria would stow her excitement again. Monica noticed, of course.  Now she was old enough to know what was there and sharp enough to call them out.   
  
"Why don't you guys just get on with it, Mom?"   
  
Maria would sigh. "It's not that simple, baby."   
  
She doesn't know what to do, really. It _is_ Carol. Same old Carol, standing around with nervous energy, swinging Monica around to make her laugh, getting her hands into everything. One day, Maria finds Carol methodically going through her tool box, scanning things with her weird alien wristwatch.   
  
"Now that I'm here I can really bring you into the modern era" she says, affixing something to Maria's plane that Maria is pretty sure isn't any technology she or the aviation authority knows of.   
  
"If you're going to meddle with my engine you're going to explain to me what you're doing", says Maria, and Carol shrugs and moves over to show her the adjustments, shoulders touching as they lean over together to see what she's been doing. Fury isn't going to like it. But he doesn't have to know just yet. 

 

☆☆☆ 

  
Carol doesn't complain about the long drives out to the desert. Maria thought she might, given since she's figured out how to fly she's been nearly impossible to keep on the ground for more than ten minutes (frankly, same old Carol) but Carol seems content to roll down the window, put on her aviators and squint out through the sun as the wind blows her hair around her face. She lets Maria drive fairly often. Still co-pilots, after all these years. Monica sits in the middle of the back seat, now and then hands Carol her comic book to point out a new alien power thing she should try.   
  
Carol, never having been elegant, has to spit her hair out of her face when she turns to look at what Monica is showing her. "Hmmm, good find Lieutenant Trouble. We'll do a test run when we get there."   
  
"Do I want to know?"   
  
"I mean, if it works? It'd be pretty cool."   
  
"Okay, what is it?"   
  
"Lazer eyes!" pipes in Monica, turning the comic to show her mom. Maria's not sure where she got the X-Men from.   
  
"Pew pew!" says Carol, mimicking the motion of Cyclops from the book. Nothing happens, which is good, because Maria doesn't want to buy a new truck any time soon. Monica and Carol share a grin. Maria shakes her head and joins them.   
  
They've been coming out here for a couple of months now, diligently collecting scrap from the explosion of the Kree ships. Plenty of debris probably fell further- Fury and the SHIELD program are probably dredging it out of the ocean at this moment-but the desert, where the chase happened, where Carol and Maria made their stand? Free pickings. They weren't allowing ordinary civilians near the area, but Maria wasn't exactly considered an ordinary citizen anymore.   
  
SHIELD had approached her a few weeks ago, offering her a job. She had a good head for the alien tech, they said, and they could re-purpose it for the good of the citizens of Earth. Maria said she'd think about it. Because she wants to think about it, she hasn't told Carol and Monica yet. She _thinks_ she'll take the job though. As long as they let her work close to home.   
  
She's not sure if they've approached Carol about anything yet. She knows some talk of quarantine has happened, but it's not like they have any way to contain her. They have Fury as a touchstone- he seems to have made ground arguing for the sake of his new Avengers Initiative, and as it follows, treating Carol like a hero rather than an alien invader.   
  
It's a good thing, because more than anything, Maria wants her to stay. 

  
☆ ☆☆ 

  
"Okay, so I'm going to put my hands around your waist, and we're going to-"   
  
"Take off as _steadily_ as you can manage."   
  
"Right, that. Goggles?"   
  
"Check."   
  
"Going up!"   
  
Taking off straight upward goes against absolutely everything Maria knows as a pilot, but she figures, at least if she has to go she may as well be strapped to another human being rather than a highly explosive rocket.   
  
Though the sensation is distinctly comparable. She barely avoids an exclamation, presses her hands over Carol's and holds them there as if they were the only thing keeping them attached and not the harness they've been rigging for the last week and a half for the job. She looks down. The ground is pulling away from them - 20 feet, 50 feet, 100 feet. Maria can see over the roofs of the neighbors houses, miles down the road.   
  
On an adrenal level? God, she still enjoys it. Carol opens her hands, turns them upward so Maria half floats with her, each of their hands clasped together. It doesn't quite feel like steering, but Carol turns when she squeezes her hand.   
  
"Are you having fun?" Carol asks, shouting over the wind.   
  
"We should try this over the desert!" Maria replies, voice muffled by the scarf she has wrapped around her mouth and nose to stop the windchill. "We'd have a better chance of following the crash trajectories if you can- well, can you hover?"   
  
"Haven't tried yet!"   
  
They stop and start a few times, like an engine stuttering.   
  
"I see you're still as smooth a ride as always" Maria says, and then on realizing what she's implied, feels the heat rise in her cheeks. She hopes it goes over Carol's head.   
  
They come to a dead stop, midair, a mile above the surface of the earth.   
  
"Nailed it" she hears Carol say, over the rushing blood in her head.   
  
"Wow," says Maria. It's really all she can think to say. She can see her house. Without the flapping from the drop of a parachute, the blades from a chopper, the engine in a jet, it is ethereally silent up here. All she can hear is her own heartbeat drumming in her ears.   
  
Carols arms encircle her waist. She rests her chin on Maria's shoulder. "Wow. Also you are *very* warm right now" she says, as if Maria can't feel like halo at her back from Carol lighting up like the fourth of july at her core.   
  
Maria doesn't exactly lean back- doesn't quite work that way when you're strapped on to someone. But she rests her arms over Carols.   
  
"Please don't crash land us on the way back."   
  
"Please Maria, I'm a professional."

  
  
☆☆☆

  
  
Pickings are starting to get slim. Fury's had more manpower lately, moving all traces of the extraterrestrial into air force bases and secret vaults for study. Maria's sure she'll have access to them at some stage, if she asks, now that she's working for Shield. But she's a little sad that they may have to give up on their family pastime.   
  
She watches Carol zoom across the opening of the canyon. "Anything?"   
  
"Looks clean. Not even a scorch mark."   
  
"I could've sworn this is where it happened." Maria remembers the thumping power of the skrull-jet engine, remembers weaving around through the gorge, every part of her brain wired, hands slick with sweat on the joystick, every part of her focused to one point as she sees the enemy ship come into vision-   
  
"Wait I see something" Carol says, hovering down to around mid-canyon level. Maria watches as she squints and digs into the rock with her fingers, then carefully extracts something- something very small. She flies down to Maria with it clutched in her fist.   
  
"Close your eyes"   
  
Maria rolls them instead. "I'm not five, Carol."   
  
"Aw, come on." She's never lost that ability to look like an excited child when she's found something she wants to show her.   
  
Maria sighs, closes her eyes and holds out her hand. She feels Carol place something cool and dense in the center of her palm, curling her fingers over it, carefully brushing over Maria's knuckles before releasing.   
  
"Okay. Open."   
  
In the center of her palm is a cool teardrop-shaped metal shard, silver on one side, with flecks of black as if during the high speed explosion parts of the ship had melted together. It could almost look earth made- if not for the radiant streaks of blue fused into it, wispy like Carol's energy, static across the surface.   
  
"I mean," Carol shrugs one shoulder, "it's functionally useless, but we could definitely make you a cool necklace out of it, if you wanted."   
  
Maria turns it over in her hands. "It's still hard to believe sometimes that all that really happened."   
  
"Really? I mean, I'm standing right here."   
  
Maria gives her a playful shove for being obnoxious, heat pooling in her chest. "I'll keep it. You're right, it would make a good necklace."   
  
Carol hums, pleased with herself. She turns, hearing Monica shout from the river.   
  
"Hey Mom, Auntie Carol? I think I found something!" She watches Monica lean down and heft up a blackened pipe the length of her forearm, laughing as water pours out of it and down the side of her overalls.   
  
"You were up there that whole time and didn't manage to see that?"   
  
Carol laughs and follows her to inspect what Monica has found. 

  
☆☆☆ 

  
The roar of the engine is comforting. Helmet on, goggles, hand curled around the joystick. Flying with Carol was nice, of course, but these were her _own_ wings.   
  
Shield hadn't just hired her to look into the alien tech. Sometimes being able to understand what you're flying is a real plus on your resume when it comes to secret agencies and spaceships. So they let her fly their new experiments from time to time - no point in wasting talent. And the bright side was they owned airspace - enough airspace that Maria could really test her limits.   
  
As could Carol. Tapping on the outside of the glass. Maria flicked on her radio. "Houston, I've got a cheeky bird tapping on my glass up here." She saw Carol grin. Her space helmet had been fitted with a new receiver, so she could hear what Maria was broadcasting. They had organized their own frequency as soon as they had it installed.   
  
"Seems like you're having trouble keeping up, Captain" she hears Carol say, before she peels away from the cockpit.   
  
"Me? Just taking a leisurely cruise. What, you wanted a race?"   
  
Carol gives her a surfer wave and takes off.   
  
"Oh, so that's how it is" said Maria, already gunning the engine. She feels the acceleration pull her back into her seat, feels the roar of the machine she's piloting, and is so, so glad she gets to do this again.   
  
Carol, incandescent, is never going to be covert. Maria traces her rainbow slipstream in a solid curve, bracing for the g's and slipping close to the edge of their allotted airspace - never touching. The maneuverability of the new planes was impressive- they could pull a tight arc at high speed, but that's also exactly what had counted out so many of Shield's other pilots. Not a lot of people could stand that kind of force. Maria could. Carol could too. It's part of why they'd stuck together so long. They could keep up with one another.   
  
Maria pulled the nose of her jet ahead of Carol and grinned to herself.   
  
"Eat my dust Danvers."   
  
"Whoa Rambeau, playing for keeps for once?"   
  
She could hear Carol's laugh reflect her own, but she wasn't quite managing to pull farther ahead. "I think we finally made a plane that can keep up with you."   
  
"I'm pretty sure nobody but you could keep up with me."

  
Maria loses her voice for a moment, because something in her swells. Carol taps on her windscreen. Maria realizes what's happening. "Oh, you-"   
  
Carol takes off at top speed again. Maria deals with the turbulence and keeps up. It's what she knows how to do. 

  
☆☆☆ 

  
Monica is asleep in the back seat and the light is low. Maria sighs and crosses her arms, leans back against the hood of the truck and says "I think we're running out of excuses to come out here."   
  
Carol looks at her and chuckles and says "I mean if you want more excuses, I can always go pull down a satellite or two."   
  
"Don't you dare" Maria laughs.   
  
"Oh, come on. I could get you a Cassini or a Sputnik. Whatever you want!"   
  
"You are trouble. Both feet on the ground, please." The truck is still warm behind them, from the autumn sun. Carol shifts a little next to her. She's been fidgety as hell lately, and she thinks Maria hasn't noticed, but she has.   
  
It's still surprising when she shifts and carefully lays her hand over Maria's and twines their fingers together. When Maria startles and looks at her, Carol does this little... Smirk thing. Smiles and shakes her head a little. It's like a dare, only she knows Carol - better than Carol knows herself sometimes, these days. It's a look they shared so many times in the Pegasus days, but it never went anywhere, mostly because Carol "Died" and Maria had Monica to look after, Maria had a life to get on with.   
  
So Maria does the only sensible thing to do about it and leans over to kiss her. Carol makes a pleased noise and leans in decisively, puts her arm around Maria's waist as they bring their lips together. Everything feels warm, and slow, and so complete.   
  
Maria breaks them apart, only a couple of inches, and stares into Carol's eyes.   
  
"You were waiting for me."   
  
Carol tilts her head. "I was giving you a chance to catch up."   
  
"Wow," Maria says, and she would have said more but Carol's right _here_ and she knows there's nothing else to do but kiss her again. “Then I guess we won’t have to wait anymore” she says, and does.


End file.
